Two

much on his words followed by endless silent minutes. ‘Finally, this absurd affair can work right, you should know each other and maybe you’ll find out that you have something true to share or simply that you don’t belong together. Leaving aside the morning look, you’ll start to think about building a life with a real woman who is not only a one-night stand’.

The idea that I might have idealised a woman that I don’t even know scares me, and if she wasn’t really as I believe? It would be like losing her forever without ever having had her. It often happened to me to think about her outside the café, I gave her many names and I have imagined her in a lot of different situations. I’ve imagined her by my side while we live the places that I love the most. In my dreams I took her to my mother’s village, we’ve climbed mountains and we’ve made long strolls by the seaside. We’ve even kissed in the shadow of ancient trees.

‘Are you listening to me? If she’s not going to make the next move, enough… You’ll go there, and you’ll introduce yourself and it all happens the way it has to, once and for all.’ Stefano goes on, now completely caught up in my story and willing to arrive to a conclusion, whether it’s positive or negative. I agree with him, now I’ve realised that we must move on, we’ve been standing at the entrance of this non-affair from too long. I don’t even know her name yet. I say goodbye to my loyal friend, I go back to my way home completely wrapped in my thoughts, as much that I arrive home without even notice the miles travelled on foot. I didn’t even notice people I stepped by on the road, cars speeding beside me, fountain that were constantly streaming water, and thoughtless birds in the sky. I came back to reality only at

the sight of my closed front door before my eyes like a silent and massive guard. In the distance, I discern the old lady with my neighbour’s dog, so I hurry up to enter, with not a great desire to remain stuck on the door chatting about medicines or about the dog potty spread in who knows what street of the district.

As soon as I close the door behind me, I breath a sign of relief and I continue moving silently not to be overheard from the outside and I jump on the bed. When I woke up I am in a pull of sweat and I’m still wearing my jacket. It’s 7 p.m. and I have been sleeping for almost all the afternoon abandoned in a deep sleep. After a swift shower and with my pyjama already on I turn my laptop on and I start to work on the photographs taken today. The most beautiful are the one of the daisy and the one of the paddle with me inside… I start to recognize myself in what I am doing, and this provides me with the right energy to find the courage to turn around the story with the girl in the café.

The day after, despite I’ve been awake until late to work on the computer, I woke up following my weekly routine so that I arrive at the café at the usual hour curious to see what she was going to do after my little gift of yesterday. When I enter, I see her already sitting at her table, as usual, prettier than ever. She gives me a look, blushing a little while she turns her farce towards her friends who stands still and stares at her. There’s something weird about their behaviour, they’re not immerged in the other mornings usual naturalness between their chats in a low tone. The counter is empty, so I sit at my usual corner waiting for the barman to come. I quickly glimpse at her again and as soon as she notices that I am looking at her, she turns away from me again.

With my arm I drop an envelope that was probably laid on the sugar can in the corner. I pick it up and I notice that there’s written ‘For…?’

and on the side there’s a little flower sketched. I stop for some moments without knowing what to do and then, caught up in curiosity, I open it, being the only one in the place. Inside of it there’s a little chocolate with a daisy sketched on it. The adrenaline is going, here’s her move, the envelope is just for me. I smile while I realise that there’s also a card inside, written in pen: ‘We have other senses beside the sight and today I’ll try to please the taste too. A.’ I read it three more times almost as if I wanted to learn by heart that sentence so short but meaningful to me. When I turn, I see that she’s gone as silent that I didn’t even notice. I start to unwrap the chocolate trying not to break the envelope that I store inside the wallet. I eat it as if I’ve never eaten chocolate in my whole life, tasting slowly the bitterness of cocoa and the sweetness of vanilla that wraps it up in its smoothness. I realise that I’ve closed my eyes totally caught up in its taste and only focused on the sense of taste, just as A wrote in her card that I read again for the fourth time almost looking for something between the lines. Then I store it in the pocket of my jacket where it’s ready to be read other more times, till death. The taste of chocolate is fixed in my mind and from now on I’ll never be able to eat something that has the same taste without thinking about this catching morning made of coffee and vanilla chocolate. With a dumb smile on my face, I say goodbye to the barman who in the meantime had offered me my usual coffee, and I go away a little bothered by the fact that I am not going to see my mysterious woman for the next two days, with the weekend just around the corner.

In the past, Saturday and Sunday have always been a blessing but since I met her they have become the two days to live as fast as possible, craving for the oxygen that her next Monday morning look will bring to me. This will be even longer and heavier, even if this way I’ll have the chance to think longer about my next move. The game has been decided, I must focus on the five senses and decide if I want to follow what she designed to be the second or go on to the next one. I still taste the strong flavour of chocolate in my mouth and I hope it will stay longer to fix it more powerfully in my memory. It immediately comes to my mind Proust’s Magdalene, what he remembered eating that by a distance of years and I start to understand his writings more and more and the strong feelings evoked by a little and simple childhood sweet. I wish I could have a lot more of these chocolates, so that I could eat one of them every time the memory starts to fade or any time I want to keep alive the thought I have about her even when she’s not here. A taste that by now is linked to two deep and piercing eyes, her beauty, and black straight hair on her shoulders. It’s linked to that hardly evident smile framed by pink lips and clear and shining skin. Today she had a forest green dress with black high heel boots glimpsed under the table when I arrived. It’s a pity that I didn’t have the chance to see her going out in order to detect some more details of her perfect body too often hidden under coats and scarfs during this season. But today the sense is taste, so I stop my thought at the chocolate that I’ve found in the envelope. I wonder if she had tasted it too, in order to share the velvet sensation of taste. Going out, I noticed on her table that she took a coffee instead of the usual cappuccino, maybe just to taste the same experience that I had. I almost feel like

I’ve kissed her, tasting the chocolate of her lips, tight in an embrace made of a wise mixture of perfumes and tastes. I take another picture of the card written in her beautiful tidy and full handwriting and I send it to Stefano. His answer is immediate: ‘The game has begun ’

CHAPRER 6

The chocolate of remembrance

Here we are, today Camilla came to pick me up so that we could revise our plan before entering the café. We try to arrive at least ten minutes earlier compared to the usual so that we could set everything before he arrives. Before going out, I wrote a card to explain my gift.

The little chocolate, in addition to the link of the same common thread of the daisy, must carry on our non-affair with the discovery of the senses, our senses, moving from sight to taste. I’ve decided not to sign the card but to put only the initial of my name, so that I would not reveal too much and I would not end too soon this game that is getting more intriguing, different from the usual flirting schemes. I write on the envelope ‘For…?’ since I don’t have a clue about what is name is, I put everything inside and I come down running towards my friend who has already buzzed from a few minutes.

Today I woke up earlier than the usual and it took me half an hour only to decide what to wear. In the end, I opted for a wool soft dress of my favourite colour, dark green, and my high heel boots. While I’m in the street, I can’t wait to arrive and I almost got hit by a car since I’m so head over hills that I didn’t even notice a red traffic light. Arrived safe and sounds at the café we laid the bags at the usual table and we wait at the counter. When it’s almost the time of his arrival, Camilla placed herself in front of the entrance and I made the barman get away towards the kitchen with an excuse. At this point, I placed the envelope in front of the sugar box on the side where he always stands to have a coffee. I know for sure that he’s going to take the sugar box and he’s

going to find the envelope in front of his eyes hoping that, realising that it’s for him, he would open it.

Camilla waves at me when he’s arriving and so we quickly sit pretending that nothing is happening despite a whisper of shortness of breath provoked by emotions and by the brief run towards the table. In order not to express my emotions, when he enters I look at him only for few instants. I am as excited as never before and I hope not to blush too much revealing my fake carelessness with regards to his arrival.

When he finally reaches the counter, we secretly spy on him, hoping that he hurries up and takes that envelope on display just before him.

He turns towards me in a blink and, feeling caught, I immediately look the other way. Today there’s not the usual harmony of our meeting: the last events left us more excited than the usual, he’s not the usual too. In order to break this awkward moment, he accidentally drops the envelope to the ground. When he picks it up, he gets slowly up looking at the mysterious addressee marked on the envelope with a little flower that I sketched while we were already on the road. It was to help him decoding the massage and to make him realise that he was exactly the one who had to open the envelope.

When we notice that he was opening it, we took the opportunity to go away secretly without making any noise, running away in the street.

The only thing that makes me sad is that I’m going to wait two days to see how our game will continue and I already know that it will be a very long weekend. Luckily, it matched a little trip that I had planned a long time before. Therefore, in the late afternoon I’ve already taken the train that will lead me to Venice to meet the baby of one of my five cousins who was born only a few months before. Her husband will be

outside the city in these days, so I grasped the opportunity to help her and to be together after a long time that we haven’t seen each other.

Today I finished work soon, taking advantage of some time off hours that I’ve previously asked in order not to have last minutes pranks. My pretty and little trolley awaits me home, packed with all the necessary things for these two days out of the city. I wear my comfy skinny jeans that I can fit into my boots with my hot and slim blue and brown sweater, unfailing during my winter trips. After a while I wear my coat again, with scarf and hat, ready to face Venice during this time of the year. I have been waiting for this trip for weeks and luckily it seems that the weather is going to help us providing us with two sunny days not even so cold with respect to the season. To avoid being late, a taxi that will take me to the train station is already waiting for me under my front door. As soon as I sit down and I close the door I already feel like I am on holyday. On the way I check a few last things and I prepare tickets and money to pay the ride. In ten minutes we’re already at the entrance of the station right on time for the departure. Arrived at the departures board, I look for my train and I receive the bad news of a delay of half an hour. On one hand, I thank heaven that this is the only delay and I take advantage to have a stroll between the shops renewed in the last years so that they create a real mall under the tracks, in a sort of underworld. There are all the trendiest brands especially for youngest girls and fast foods unfolded between scents and appealing colourful advertising that offer a good lunch at a few euros cost.

At this hour this area of the station is really crowded, who arrives, who is simply here to do some undisturbed and easy linked shopping. I

stop to buy a bottle of water in a shop entirely provided with automatic dispensers of every kind of water. Before I choose, I look at all of them: plain, still, sparkling, slightly sparkling, soda, not to mention the one containing more or less sodium and so on. Well, nowadays even choosing water becomes difficult. Just in case, I choose a brand that I know and I go back to my tour, looking at the watch now and then to avoid the risk of remaining in Rome. When my train finally arrives, I get on the coach displayed on the ticket and I have a seat. I connect my tablet to the station free Wi-Fi and I check the last messages, always hoping to find a contact from him. Disappointed from receiving only advertising e-mails and some answer to work messages, I turn everything off and I wait to hear the whistle that heralds the departure.

When the train starts to move I close my eyes, cradled by the increasing pace on the tracks that are slipping under my feet. That noise brings me back in the years, when I was a girl and I used to go to the mountains with the group of friends of my district. We always travelled by night and we almost never slept during the ride. There was always someone who brought the guitar and played in the couches with all the others pushed inside to sing. Someone stopped in the corridors, watching outside the windows the darkness lighted only by many street lamps along the way that moved away leaving behind a light trail. The rumour of the tracks, always identical like a chant that was a base for the choral voices and the sound of the guitar. Long trips that passed quickly in the euphoria of a holyday far from home, from families, from school… Ready to the adventure that only mountain experienced in tent can offer. The same train would have seen us again after ten days spent totally immersed in nature, between green trees and cold

streams that became source of water to bath and wash dishes. The same train that would have taken us home tired but as happy as ever with the backpack full of dirty clothes and with many adventures to tell. At that time there weren’t mobile phones or Internet to divert our attention from what surrounded us and the only contact with home was a single call made in the half of the week from a cabin far away from our camp. And we used to live so well…

When I open my eyes again, I am alone and outside the window it’s still day. I am enchanted by the landscape that surrounds me and it seems that it was eaten by the unbridled run of that long means of transport. Its sound is still the same of the one of a lot of years ago, its regular pace is always unaltered. I am the only one who changed, but with the usual smile that is finally came back to shine on my face tired and marked from the events of a lifetime. I enjoy taking some picture from the window. Luckily, my seat is just the window one and so I can admire undisturbed the scene that changes before my eyes. I enjoy modifying the photos that I’ve taken through some applications that are nowadays installed on every mobile phone and I post some of them on my profile. I check the mail, even if I see that there is any new message. Nothing, not a trace of my mysterious café friend who probably doesn’t even know where and how to find me.

In front of me sat a couple who will be more or less my same age.

Since he got on he has done nothing but calling with his latest fashion headphones and playing with his smartphone. She has a listless face and, without saying a single word since she sat down, she has her look lost in the central corridor glancing at who knows what inexistent spot before her. Then she took a bag of chips from her purse, hangs it to

him who shakes his head while continues typing quickly on his virtual keyboard. With the same mood showed until now, she starts to eat chips, slowly and almost coerced. There’s no emotion in her eyes, always abandoned in the void. Suddenly she stops, the vibration of her mobile phone notifies her a message that she reads quickly but with a light in her eyes that she had never had until that moment. While she puts her phone back, in the same speed she had taken it from her coat pocket, I detect a slight smile on her lips and a little tear on her face.

She swiped it immediately away with her hand while she turned in the opposite side with regard to where her husband is sitting. Then she continues eating her chips, coming back to her absent world and regardless of what is happening around her.

I start to imagine who could have texted her to make her resurrect from a trance and boredom state when I am also reached by a message that takes me back to reality. I start to look for my phone in my bag with such a fervour that I drop some of the things that were inside of it.

My fellow traveller immediately activates and helps me pick up what I’ve lost from the floor of the coach that is making my personal belongings swing back and forth as in an endless ballet. I thank her and we exchange a smile and I understand that hers is a strong solitude that she would like to break even with the first person who comes along.

I’ve finally found my phone: it’s my cousin from Venice who tells me that I’m going to find her outside the station waiting for me in her car.

I answer her writing about the slight delay and I put my phone back, this time in the pocket of the bag so that I’ll easily find it the next time.

As soon as my ‘new friend’ realises I’ve finished to fight with technology, she starts to speak to me: ‘I also always happen to drop

things from my bag’. At her first words, her husband jumps on his seat almost surprised to hear his wife’s voice coming out her vocal chords.

Then, in the same way, he goes back to play with his phone looking a little bothered by our chat. We continue to make small talk until our arrival in Venice without noticing that the sun has already given its place to darkness and we even exchange our contacts to see each other again, maybe for a pizza, once we’ll be back in Rome. They live not too far from me and, being childless, it could be funny to organize a ladies night, thing that she has never done since she married the love of her life five years ago. I don’t know if I’ll see her again but seeing her enthusiasm only at the idea of our pizza gave me hope about her taking her life into her hands again and leaving a too boring routine. And who knows who sent her that message so intriguing to make her cry. Maybe one day I’ll be able to ask her, satiating my endless curiosity. We say goodbye as we were great friends, with him only a cold ‘hi’ instead, and then we went separate ways.

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